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Includes bibliographical references (p. [194]-200) and index.

Contents

Introduction: The conception of childhood-- Part 1: The Aristotelian Heritage-- 1.1. How Anti-Aristotelian can one be?-- 1.2. Aristotle's debt to Plato-- 1.3. Aristotle: children as people in formation-- 1.4. Histories of childhood: footnotes to Aristotle?-- 1.5. Pessimism and sin: the Puritan child-- 1.6. Optimism and enlightenment: the liberal child-- 1.7. Trailing clouds of glory: the romantic child-- 1.8. The postmodern child: less than not much?-- Part 2: A Fully Semiotic View of Childhood-- 2.1. Living as semiotic engagement:-- 2.2. The meaning-making semiotic child-- 2.3 Learning and schooling: Dewey and beyond-- Part 3: Education Reconsidered-- 3.1. The roots of compulsory schooling-- 3.2 The extension of the in-between years-- 3.3 Teaching for significant events: identity and non-identity-- Part 4: The Child in Society-- 4.1 The child and the law-- 4.2 Semiosis and social policy-- 4.3 Doing children justice-- References.

(source: Nielsen Book Data)9780826499721 20160527

Publisher's Summary

A study that critically examines the basis for the growing belief that compulsory education is a necessary social good. It also addresses whether adulthood should be conceived as an entirely separate realm from childhood.Philosophical accounts of childhood have tended to derive from Plato and Aristotle, who portrayed children (like women, animals, slaves, and the mob) as unreasonable and incomplete in terms of lacking formal and final causes and ends. Despite much rhetoric concerning either the sinfulness or purity of children (as in Puritanism and Romanticism respectively), the assumption that children are marginal has endured. Modern theories, including recent interpretations of neuroscience, have re-enforced this sense of children's incompleteness.This fascinating monograph seeks to overturn this philosophical tradition. It develops instead a 'fully semiotic' perspective, arguing that in so far as children are no more or less interpreters of the world than adults, they are no more or less reasoning agents. This, the book shows, has radical implications, particularly for the question of how we seek to educate children.The study will examine critically the bases for the beliefs that more and more compulsory education is necessarily a social good, and that adulthood should be conceived as an entirely separate realm from childhood. "Continuum Studies in Educational Research" (CSER) is a major new series in the field of educational research. Written by experts and scholars for experts and scholars, this ground-breaking series focuses on research in the areas of comparative education, history, lifelong learning, philosophy, policy, post-compulsory education, psychology and sociology. Based on cutting edge research and written with lucidity and passion, the "CSER" series showcases only those books that really matter in education - studies that are major, that will be remembered for having made a difference. (source: Nielsen Book Data)9780826499721 20160527